Church included in this Blog for the good of the Church

Dave (senior minister) was leading training this week on ‘urban church’. Really interesting stuff that left me feeling really inspired to learn as much from this year as possible…. What does urban church look like? Or perhaps I should phrase it how does our urban church (Church.co.uk) look? It looks pretty inclusive I’d say. I think the majority of the people in our church are people that have been rejected by other churches. Rejected referring to not being supported to be themselves or not being supported during a difficult time in their life…. If that doesn’t quite make sense then here are a couple of examples of inclusive church that Dave gave us at training.

After the morning service Dave was approached by one of the men in the congregation. The guy told him that he had been attending the church for two weeks and felt that he’d like to make it his regular place of attendance. He enjoyed the people attending the church and felt at home. However, he explained to Dave, there was one slight problem…. he was gay. Dave said ‘cool’. A little surprised, the guy asked what the churches policy on homosexuality was? Dave asserted that the church didn’t have a policy on homosexuality and that he was more than welcome. Still not knowing how to respond the guy asked Dave if he considered homosexuality to be a sin. Dave responded: “If homosexuality is a sin then you’re a sinner but that makes you just like me and everyone else in this church…sinners”.

The other story Dave told my training group was about a couple that approached him to dedicate their child. Dave agreed when they initially asked him. However, when it came to getting their details it became apparent that they were not married and had two kids together. Dave decided to dedicate the child despite the parents not being married. It would be interesting to know how other churches would have reacted. Anyway a couple of weeks after the child had been dedicated the parents had continued to attend the church. After one service they approached Dave and asked him to marry them….I think the stories a very powerful witness of what God will do if we open ourselves up to people.

Inclusive church takes risks, and I suppose is willing to include the people that other churches might not. When I was visiting Brighton the advocacy team I met told me about their unique selling point. It was “we work with the people other organisations don’t want to”. In a sense churches unique selling point should be to “involve the people that society other parts of society doesn’t”….